3 Customer Service Skills That Really Matter

Regardless of whether the job position you are after is a part-time or full-time gig, many potential employers seek applicants well-versed in customer service. You may think adding “great customer service skills” to your resume prior to job applications may be enough to secure you a job, but there are a variety of skills that fit under “customer service skills” that you could advertise yourself with and increase your chances of getting hired.

Here are some customer skills that will attract employers in your job search.

1) Communication

Communication is key when it comes to making a customer’s experience a good one start to finish as it is what allows you to connect with them and attend to them as needed. You need to be able to approach the customer confidently in order to figure out just what they need from you — a quick question, a detailed tutorial, etc. — and how you could best help them.

Once you establish that initial connection with a client, it is important to continue to build on the connection through good communication. If they are looking for help with a product, they’ll put genuine trust in you as the “expert” of the thing they are seeking. They’ll only know what you tell them, so it is important to have the ability to explain to them whatever they need to know and confirm that they understand after you have helped them.

Be ready to follow up, whether it be with a few questions to make sure that they’ve understood everything mentioned or giving them information on what to expect.

Never leave a customer in the dark when attending to them; don’t shield them from anything “negative.” For example, if you are dealing with a repair on one of their belongings, don’t keep another issue you’ve found from them in hopes of keeping them happy. Be ready to relay any problems that may arise.

At the same time, do not over inform a client in the sense that you are promising something you can’t absolutely give them. Don’t say something is 100 percent repairable if you are not 100 percent sure.

2) Patience

Anyone who has held a job that requires great customer service skills knows how important patience can be when it comes to dealing with customers and different situations. While every customer service worker would love to have every customer experience be painless and easy, they aren’t. Customers can be rude or snappy from the get-go, wanting to get attended to as soon as they get into the doors and out as soon as possible.

Instead of getting just as snappy as a rude customer, you need to be patient with the customer (and somewhat tolerant of rude behavior). Momentarily ignore any rude behavior to get to the point of understanding them and their problem, and how you could attend to that problem.

Rude customers aside, you will also need patience to deal with unexpected situations, like a coworker messing up with another customer and you having to deal with their disgruntled customer, having to deal with multiple customers on your own, or a customer not satisfied with the help you have given them or with a prior experience.

3) Attentiveness

When dealing with any customer, you’ll need to be attentive from the moment they come in through the moment they leave. Greet them when they come into the store; no customer wants to walk into a store with a disinterested worker scrolling through their phone or looking like they want nothing to do with the customer.

If they’ve been wandering aimlessly around the store or stopped in a certain spot for a while, approach them to see if they need any help. Don’t wait for them to come to you; if they think they won’t be getting help at the location they may just want to take their business elsewhere with workers that are more attentive.

The ability to pick up on cues is a great one to have when it comes to customer service, whether it’s noticing a customer seeming less and less interested in what you’re saying and knowing to steer the conversation into another direction, or knowing when they can handle picking something out on their own without you pestering them.